Student: Gracyn Reed

Title/description: Damaged Hitter

Student’s organization: Avila University

Client Organization:
Time period:
Brief description:
KC Barnstormers
January through March 2016 –Researching and planning
April 2016– Initial proposal presented to Karl Carswell
Karl Carswell requested a website design and media kit for his new program Damaged
Hitter in order for people to understand what baseball is all about.

Need/Opportunity
The KC Barnstormers are a local baseball club run by Karl Carswell. The goal of his program is to find scholarships for high school
athletes to play baseball in college. Karl teaches his players not only the physical side of baseball but also the mental game. Sports
Promotion Students were asked to develop a website that explains what the Damaged Hitter program consists of, what the progression
of your child will be after the program, and what the next step would be.

Intended Audience
Our target market – Baseball players ages 10-25

Demographics: Population of Kansas City, Missouri is 467,007 and there are approximately 45 local club organizations for youth
baseball. Generally our target market is made up of people categorized as Millennials and Generation Z.
Geographics: KC Barnstormers facility is located in the Kansas City metro area in western Missouri. Lee’s Summit is approximately
400 square miles in area.
Psychographics: The values attitudes and belief of this generational and economic group aren’t necessarily the target. The parents of
the Millennials and Gen Z kids are the ones who will be paying for the Damaged Hitter program but the program has to appeal to the
children. The kids are the ones who want to improve and they will be the ones who need to be interested enough to tell their parents to
buy the program and tell their friends to get their parents to buy the program.

Goals and Objectives

The primary goal is to educate the youth on the mental game of baseball.
The secondary goal is to promote Karl’s program Damaged Hitter
The primary objective is to create a brand image that Karl will chose to use in his program forever.
The secondary objective is to earn an A for this project.

Solution Overview
Damaged Hitter is a program focused on improving the hitting of the students while achieving organizational goals, which include
maintaining current players, bringing in new customers, generate positive publicity, and reinforcing the image of the coach of the
program Karl Carswell. In order to achieve our objectives and work toward the goals, we have devised a comprehensive campaign
with a variety of communication strategies. The main focus of Damage Hitter is to improve players batting average.

Stakeholder Involvement
We did not have a great deal of involvement with the stakeholder. There were 6 students in the class and we had problems with
contacting Karl. Our team listened carefully and paid attention to what Karl wanted. We tried to focus on what we had been told
during our planning. We were allowed to email him when we had specific questions but he didn’t always get the emails and he
contrasted the information with the information already on his website.

Identify key messages

1. “Don’t be damaged –do damage”
2. Teach your child how to hit the ball better, without breaking the bank
3. Karl Carswell will help you reach your full potential as a baseball player

Tactics and communication vehicles

We wanted our materials to be appealing to youth baseball players. We used a player silhouette as part of the logo, and the color
green, with black as an accent color to appeal to the target market.

1. Media Kit 2. Logo

3. T-shirt is included with the registration fee 7. Radio Spot/Podcast
4. Tag Line: “don’t be damaged –do damage” 8. Billboard
5. Media Release 9. Bumper Sticker
6. Flyers 10. Brochure
Explain how you sold the plan to management/client, etc.
We presented the Power Point included with this entry.
We gave them a mock-up of the T-shirt and bumper sticker

Provide time frames

We began the planning in February 2016 and presented to the Director of Marketing at Paradise Park on December 5, 2012.

Describe any limitations or challenges you faced implementing your ideas

The things that Karl had originally told us about what was online for the program and what he wanted were two different things. It was
also very hard to contact him due to emailing problems. In the end, it was also hard for my classmates to understand the difference
between his team Barnstormers and the Damaged Hitter Program, which was the most challenging part.